Within the last month there have been shareware articles in several magazines (including one of the most read Game Development journals), and there was an article link on the front page of cnn.com for weeks.

Does all this coverage concern anyone else?

As a relative newcomer to the shareware field I'm already a little worried about how to get noticed amidst all the noise, and now it seems like these articles are only going to encourage MORE spare-time developers to create titles. I've worked in the game industry for years and there are a LOT of [very very talented] artists and programmers out there who are probably jumping on the bandwagon right now, thinking they are going to sell a million units like PopCap. These guys are capable of putting out some very professional stuff, with amazing graphics, animation, sound and music. Lone wolf game makers may soon be a dying breed.

I'm sure you established indies see this as a good thing, and a challenge, but for someone like me, who is trying to make a small dent in the market, it's kind of disheartening. Anyone else feel this way?

This post isn't meant as a rant -- that would be a waste of time and energy seeing as how there really isn't anything I can DO about the situation. I guess I'm just looking for someone to put a pollyanna spin on this so I'll feel less grumpy about the whole thing. ;-)

Personally I think it's great news. If more people are aware of independent games and are comfortable about paying to download games as a result, then it can only be a good thing.

It may well lead to more indie developers and publishers springing up, but it's all about the delivery. If you've got a great game up your sleeve and know how to promote it (or if not, are willing to learn) then you have every reason to be positive. :)

Btw, which games development journal was the article in?

John,

I think the same thing you do, on occasion, and then I realize that 90% of the ones that try will fail for any number of reasons: they can't actually complete the game, the team falls apart, they don't have any passion for promoting their game, they don't do research, they make one game and it doesn't sell as well as they would like so they never try to make it better and quit...

There are examples of all of these people that hang out on this board. Some, even when presented with things they should think about, refuse to even consider what others are saying.

When I think about that part of it, after the dread of having to compete with all of them, I just renew my commitment to myself to not be one of the 90% who give up when something doesn't go the way I intend. Worrying about the wannabe's is a waste of time.

Originally posted by Mark Fassett
John,

I think the same thing you do, on occasion, and then I realize that 90% of the ones that try will fail for any number of reasons

From what I've heard, that number is actually close to 98%. About 1 in 50 games get finished, or 2%. I wouldn't worry about people jumping on the bandwagon. If someone thinks they can make a quick buck out of this, they've already doomed themselves to failure before they even started making a game. In fact the attention and the people jumping on the bandwagon is good. As Steve P. has said before, this will help educate the public about shareware, which helps all of us.

... if talented artists want to jump on the bandwagon, why not just convince them to work *with* you? How can having more artists available be a bad thing? :)

"THERE'S NO ROOM FOR THE WANNABEES,
THE HAS-BEENS OR THE BAD.
STAY HUNGRY
FEEL THE FIRE
STAY HUNGRY
DON'T EXPLODE
STAY HUNGRY
WITH DESIRE
STAY HUNGRY YOU'RE ALONE"

-Twisted Sister :)

Originally posted by Fenix Down
If someone thinks they can make a quick buck out of this, they've already doomed themselves to failure before they even started making a game.
Probably, but they can also doom the rest of us in the process.

As computers were becoming more popular, more and more people decided they wanted to be "computer professionals" to make a quick buck. I knew these people weren't in it for the long haul, and I didn't think they would really make a dent in the job market for those of us who were real professionals with a real interest. I didn't think most of them would even make it out of college (and I'd argue many of them didn't deserve to). However, now that the economy has gone bad (and the job market along with it), we have an enormous number of people with no real interest in computer just wanting to cash in, coming out of college with just barely enough knowledge to get a job done. Sure they don't produce the same quality of work, but if something just barely works, managers often overlook that and say "hey, they'll work for less...let hire them". Of course they'll work for less than I will. They'll work for any pay that's higher than McDonald's. I has nudged a lot of the more experienced professionals out of the way by undercutting their salaries. It never thought these money grubbers would have any real impact on the serious professionals, but they did.

So now you think a bunch of people might try to cash in on independent game development. You can tell yourself "ah, they'll never even finish, so there won't be anything to compete with my games". However, these money-grubbers could surprise you by eeking out a sub-par game that barely works. Now, I'm not saying these people could come in and replace us like the people in my previous example, but they could come in and have the opposite effect. The indie scene already has a bad reputation for producing low quality games. Now imagine if 10 times the number of developers come in. Suddenly, the 5% of us that actually make good games have just been reduced statistically to 0.5%. And while we are all jumping for joy that we have a new outlet for exposure, and suddenly all kinds of people are becoming aware of indie games, you have to consider the possibility that what these people are becoming more aware of is just how low quality a lot of indie games are. Certainly this wouldn't kill off the developers that make the very best games. I'm sure they'd still find their outlet. However, it might make the developers that produce pretty-darn-good-but-not-quite-the-best games disappear into the crowd. I'm not saying this is what will happen, but it's something that could, so you can't just write off the whole scenario.

OHHHHH!!!!!!!! :eek: I'm sorry. You said pollyanna, not cassandra. My bad.

I think what's already beginning to happen is a split in the indie scene. On one side there're amateur/hobbyist developers including those people just making a quick stop to try their hand at making a quick buck. On the other side there are professional indies like Dexterity, Retro64, Spiderweb, Goodsol, etc.. Eventually it'll be easy for customers to tell who the professional indies are and who the amateur ones are. In their eyes it would just be a difference between professional and amateur.

Thus in the end I don't think that low quality shareware games flooding the market is going to screw things up for those of us who are serious about this business. It'll just make the separation process quicker. The problem would be if we got mixed in with the amateur crowd, that's something to watch out for. We need to distinguish ourselves with professional looking web sites and games.

Oh by the way you're right about the job market. When I went to college 4 years ago (finishing in a month), I think like half of the freshman class were CS majors. I went CS because of my genuine interest in the field, but most people didn't. It was so bad in fact that I've only met a few people who're genuinely interested in programming throughout my time in college. I also tutored C++ for a year (my 3rd year). I had 4th year CS majors come to me who didn't know how to program. As well as people coming with their assignment sheets and saying "can you do this program for me?" It was a pretty sad experience so I quit after 2 semesters.

As someone who graduated with a Computer Science degree during the *last* recession (1991), I feel justified in making the following statement: You learn to deal, or you find something else to do.

If you look closely, BTW, you'll see that the 1991 recession actually fed the boom years of the late 1990's. How? A lot of professionals who were laid off found that to make ends meet they had to start their own companies, so they did. And things took off.

It's entirely possible that the new recession, which hit the game industry as hard or harder than the IT market in general, could result in a huge boom in game development in the near future, for both retail and indie developers.

Since my book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1584502142/davidrmsoftwa-20) is coming out in August, I *like* the increased exposure. Hell...I'd *love* to be a talking head for a CNN spot, opining about the coming boom... ;)

As for the increased competition: That's life, and it almost always results in things getting *better*, not worse. Just do your best and keep plugging away. That's the "secret" of success in any industry, boom or bust.

-David

PS BarrySlisk: What Twisted Sister song is that? Not familiar with it.

Originally posted by DavidRM
What Twisted Sister song is that?
Stay Hungry, from the Stay Hungry album. The one with "We're not gonna take it" and "I wanna rock".

Lets put it like this.

I'm a professional developer of a good few years now.

I'm moving into indie development, mainly because I dont want to slog it out on another 2-3 year development.

I'm able to self fund for at least 5 years.

I'm in a partnership with another guy who's around the same experience.

We certainly dont intend getting involved with the same type of games we'd do in our "regular" jobs, but neither are we looking to do teeny-tiny puzzle games every 2 weeks.

I fully intend on shipping 2 or so games per year, with the games ranging quite wide in terms of genre and content.

Do i fear the competition? no.
Do i think increased numbers of developers will in some way make me less successful? no, I intend on making my own success.

I think it boils down to a matter of confidence, in yourself and your products. I KNOW we have some great games to deliver, I know we can deliver them well. I know there is a target audience that I can sell to. With this knowledge I am NOT worried by competitors, because i wont be doing what a competitor is doing anyway (and I'm not competing with anyone else).

Think of added profile of games in general being a good thing, why would good press for quality indie games be any less of a good thing?

.Z.

If you have fear of competition, you shouldn't ever start.
Sorry for being a bit rude, but this is the truth. I think that in EVERY JOB in the world there's competition, even doing the president of the USA :)
After all you aren't going to release a crappy game to make quick bush right? so you have nothing to fear.
If you got a good idea and you can actually implement it, well, go ahead without fear. After all, a game can be successfull for a lot of things, not only the quality of the game itself (even if I think it should be the main reason).

To put clear: you could make one of the best shareware games with no competition in that genre, and still not make a lot of money due to various things (bad marketing, bad pricing, piracy, ecc)

I think the worst thing could be realize that someone else is writing a game really similar to yours: that is the only thing I really fear :eek:

Even when shareware WAS fairly high profile, the BEST games were the only ones that really made much of an impact.

That still holds.

.Z.

hehe as long as we keep Dexterity's indie forums a secret we should be fine. j/k

Originally posted by LordKronos
Stay Hungry, from the Stay Hungry album. The one with "We're not gonna take it" and "I wanna rock".

YES!

Great motto for the independant developer right !? :)